Like many Americans, one thing that I have tended to do over the past decade and a half with my weight problem is to throw money at it. Sometimes it works, I suppose. Case in point, thanks to the Bowflex (partly), I can no longer really describe my weight “problem” as such.
Sometimes it doesn’t—[cough] the Body by Jake Fit Flex, those freaking Tae Bo tapes, Hot Rox thermogenic supplements, Trim Spa (but it worked for Anna Nicole?!?), a goofy leather and chain neck harness, my Gold’s Gym membership, and on, and on, and on.
Actually, my Bowflex was completely worthless for more than a year until I started using it for more than a clothes rack slash abstract sculpture. Obviously, just owning an expensive piece of exercise equipment only made my wallet lighter.
I’m at a seemingly inescapable plateau—maintaining, but not really advancing—so here we go again. I have decided that I want a chiseled upper body very badly (bulges in all the right places), but have been frustrated with my progress (or lack, thereof) over the past 8 months.
In fact, I was actually tempted to blow another $700 bucks for a year at Gold’s Gym (although the location near my house is now a New York Sports Club).
Yesterday I got a card in the mail for an offer to trade in my old Bowflex and get $1000 off the price of the Bowflex Ultimate 2. Uh oh, this is starting to sound like a commercial.
So I let reason slip away and called the number on the card around 2 AM last night (insomnia’s a bitch). I asked questions for more than a half hour, then I whipped out one of my perpetual Zero Percent Interest for One Year Credit Cards and took the plunge.
The Bowflex Power Pro was a great machine for getting me down from 274 pounds to less than ten stone, but I ran into some fairly significant limitations with this model. In fact, I may write a post detailing things I hate about the Power Pro. The Ultimate 2 seems to address almost every one of them. We’ll see, I guess.
So it’s three weeks of struggling with buyers remorse as I wait for the UPS guy.
…oh, and before you ask, no, I did not get the DVD player attachment for the Bowflex.
Oooh, a DVD attachment? The thing I want most in this world is a treadmill with a tv and dvd player in it. Once I get back into the exercise thing, I really love running, but unfortunately I’m completely uncoordinated on the treadmill and if I look up (say, at a tv) for too long I loose my footing and pace and soon I’m all but flying off the back of the treadmill. Unfortunately, since Scott doesn’t understand my need for a $7,000 piece of exercise equipment (nor does he understand why I don’t run at the gym, next to the super model going 15 miles an hour) so I don’t think I’ll be getting it soon.
On a treadmill it might make sense, because you are always facing the same direction, but on a machine like the Bowflex, where you are crawling all over the thing, I’d think it would be too much of a distraction to try and focus on a 7-inch screen.
Fast supermodels aren’t what keeps me away from the gym. :-) It’s the $60 a month membership fees, and it’s so much of a pain (esp. in the winter) to put on sweats, get in the car, drive to the gym, take off the sweats, wait for the machines you want to free up, exercise, towel off enough so you don’t catch cold outside, put the sweats back on, and drive back. It’s so much easier just to shuffle my lazy butt from my couch over to my “home gym.”
Hang in there, Michael. I’m sure you’ll overcome the road blocks that have prevented you from progressing to the level you’d like to reach.
Your progress thus far, even considering the backslides, has been, and remains impressive.
I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how inspired I am reading your blogs.
Thanks, Dj. Glad I could be a source of inspiration.
The backsliding thing can be so frustrating. I tell myself that I shouldn’t beat myself up over it, but it’s tough not to dwell on what my body could look like now if I had not backslid. Of course, I also then think about what my body used to look like—I never want to go back there.